Oil exploration firm Cairn India today said it has got government approval to build a pipeline to transport crude oil from its fields in Rajasthan to refiners.Cairn received permission to use land (Right of Use) for laying a 582-km pipeline from Barmer district of Rajasthan to Salaya in Gujarat, Cairn India CEO Rahul Dhir told PTI here."We have started the RoU process," he said.He said the company was committed to delivering oil from the Rajasthan fields in 2009. "We will begin production from Mangala (the largest of the 18 discoveries in the Rajasthan block) in 2009.However, Cairn is still awaiting a government approval to allow the cost of the $780-million pipeline to be recoverable from field revenues, as other project costs are."We are confident about approval of inclusion of the pipeline in the Field Development Plan (FDP)," Dhir said."By end of 2009, output from Rajasthan fields would be 100,000 barrels per day," he said.Almost simultaneously to the pipeline's inclusion in FDP would come the approval for selling the crude oil to multiple refiners instead of previously approved scheme, in which entire output was to be supplied to Mangalore Refinery.The pipeline, which was necessitated after Mangalore Refinery - the official offtaker of Rajasthan crude - said it could take only 1.2 million tonne of crude, will take minimum 18 months to complete. The rest of the crude will be shipped from a Gujarat port to refiners on east and west coasts.
